Imereti, Georgia — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Imereti known for?

Imereti follows the middle and upper reaches of that river, and its eleven municipalities plus the city of Kutaisi make it the most populous of the regions into which Georgia is divided. Kutaisi is the capital. Administrative business concentrates there, leaving the eleven municipal centres to the valley and the ground rising above it.

Where is Imereti?

The Rioni River organises everything. Imereti occupies the middle and upper reaches of that river, so the region reads as a corridor rather than a block, with the water running through it and the municipalities set along and above its course. Kutaisi anchors it.

Eleven municipalities and that single city make up the whole of Imereti, an administrative unit lying in the central-western part of the republic, with the river as its organising line. Elevation does the rest. Upper reaches mean higher and steeper ground than the middle course, so Imereti spans a range of settings between the river's flanks and the slopes that feed it, and no single description covers the whole region.

Conditions stay temperate throughout. That combination of a long river corridor, high ground above it and one dominant city in Kutaisi is what makes Imereti the most populous of the republic's regions rather than a thinly settled upland. Distances inside Imereti are measured against the Rioni, since the river gives the region its axis, and the eleven municipalities and the city of Kutaisi are all read against that line.

What is Imereti like?

Script and language come first. Georgian is spoken across Imereti, and the region's official name is written იმერეთის მხარე in the Georgian alphabet, with Imereti the shortened form that reaches English and other outside languages. Kutaisi carries a large share of the rest.

Regional institutions, administration and the public life that goes with being a capital concentrate in that city, which is what a single dominant centre does to a region of eleven municipalities. Eleven municipal centres share what is left, none of them a rival to Kutaisi in size or in the range of functions it holds for the region. The regional label is the outer layer.

Anything called Imereti is really eleven municipalities and one city under a single name, and the local identity of each municipal centre sits underneath that label rather than being replaced by it. Kutaisi stays the reference point. Descriptions that attach to Imereti rather than to a particular municipality are usually being measured against that city and against the Rioni River, which runs through the length of the region and gives its eleven municipalities a shared frame of reference.

What is the history of Imereti?

The administrative region dates from 1995. That year fixed Imereti as one of the units into which Georgia divides itself, drawing a boundary around the middle and upper Rioni and placing eleven municipalities under a single regional tier. Kutaisi became its capital.

The name itself is older than the boundary, which is why Imereti reads as a country rather than as a line on a map, and why the region's identity does not depend on the date it was formally constituted.

What is the climate of Imereti?

The Rioni does the work. Air moving along the valley of the middle and upper river keeps Imereti's lower ground milder than the heights that feed it, and the difference between the two is the single most useful thing to know before packing for the region. Temperate is the honest label.

Higher municipalities run colder than Kutaisi through the same season.

How do you get to Imereti?

Kutaisi is the way in. Most of what reaches Imereti from outside arrives through the regional capital or passes close to it, because the eleven municipalities that make up the rest of the region look to that one centre rather than to separate entry points of their own. The Rioni valley carries the through routes.

Movement inside Imereti follows the river's line more often than it cuts across the higher ground.